


Hindsight

by HalfASlug



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 14:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10440363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfASlug/pseuds/HalfASlug
Summary: Hardy faces his greatest flaw.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just my theory about some of Hardy's behaviour in the new series.

Hindsight is twenty twenty. That’s what people say.

People, however, are usually shit.

They lie and they cheat and they kill. They sink to new depths, developing levels of malice that terrify him in order to hurt one another.

The evidence is in front of him.

Well, he’s trying desperately to think of it as evidence. Something cold, a jigsaw piece. Bagged and tagged, ready for inspection. Nothing he’s emotionally attached to. Just another clue.

But it isn’t.

It’s Miller.

_ Ellie. _

It’s Ellie and a hospital bed and nothing could be less cold than this.

They say she’s going to be okay. It could have been worse. Just a concussion. Some cuts and bruises. It’s not good enough for him. She doesn’t deserve this. If anything she deserves it less than anyone.

He knows he has a habit of getting too involved, developing tunnel vision and ignoring what’s important. It destroyed his marriage. It nearly destroyed him. But he has been trying to be better. A better father, a better friend.

The problem is he sees the world as balancing act. He struggles with articulating his feelings but he’s always been amazing at his job. In his head, they even each other out. He can make up for one with the other.

If he could find Lisa, then he could save Pippa and stop the nightmares.

If he caught Danny’s killer, then he could get his old job back.

If he solved Sandbrook, then he could have his family again.

Time and time again, he has been proved wrong and vowed to never lose sight of what was important. Time and time again, he was blinded by his need to fix the things he knew how to repair.

His life has been one race for equilibrium and he nearly always loses.

Even now, Daisy is in the hospital somewhere. He doesn’t want her to see him so raw, but he can’t stand her being out of his sight so he bought her with him. With her out of the room, he is a twitching mess, waiting for her return. When she is there, he shuts down. She understands, he thinks, and is fetching drinks and magazines in between sitting with him as they wait for the Millers to arrive.

_ If he can protect Daisy, then maybe Miller will be okay. _

He has fucked it all up again. His driving need to right a wrong has hurt those he cares about. No arrest or conviction could bring back what he has almost lost tonight.

The failure and disgust crawl up his throat and come out as a sob. He’s clutching the cool metal of the bed frame to keep him upright because he doubts he can do so alone. Over four decades he’s had to work out how to be a decent human being, a good man. His only goal in life is to be better than his father, and yet he keeps making the same mistakes just in different ways.

Right now, listening to a heart monitor and breathing in disinfectant, he can’t see the difference between them at all.

“What the fuck have you got to cry about?”

Ellie’s voice is a croak but he has never been happier to hear it.

She’s trying to make the situation lighter, play it off as another day in the office but his stomach is filled with lead and he never wants another day like this. Every effort he makes to get himself under control just makes his limbs shake more.

Her smile is met with a whimper and it soon fades.

“Hardy-”

“Don’t.” He can’t have her comfort him. Not when she is the one that should be comforted. Not when he’s the one responsible.

He takes her hand. It’s warm underneath his clammy one.

This is it, he thinks. This is the last time he does this. He  _ has _ to stop doing this. He has to start focussing - properly focussing - on the important things.

“Hardy, you couldn’t have stopped this.”

He knows she’s wrong. Hindsight is twenty twenty, after all.


End file.
